What you don’t know CAN hurt you: Web Hosting and Credit Card Processing Bust Age-Old Myth

FREE. Simple and effective. Put it in big, bold letters across your website and you have one of the fastest ways to attract your consumers’ attention. Psychologists will tell you this is because of the traditional trend in advertising and marketing throughout the years. In many instances, however, “free” does not necessarily mean “good”, “quality”, or even “legal”.

One important case in point is in the case of securing a web host and in choosing a credit card processing company for your online business. You will find a multitude of supposedly legitimate websites brandishing their “free” services and self-proclaimed leading credit card processing companies for you to avail of, and maybe eventually regret ever having heard of. But then, how can you be sure if the offered web hosting or credit card processing service is really legitimate and won’t leave you high and dry and penniless? Read on.

How big is the “free web space”? You may find some hosting providers that offer either 5 or 10mb of web space for free. But that ever-essential fine print makes a difference. If you do fall for this bait, make sure you look at that “certain restrictions apply” section. Expert scammers can cram an entire universe of scams in that “certain restrictions apply” window of opportunity. As soon as you can, get the real low down on the size of the supposedly free web space, and what the “certain restrictions apply” conditions are.

Beware of “free domain names”. Another freebie that’s not necessarily a good thing. This is because free domain names are already in a fixed pattern, and this is a pattern that a lot of people have now come to know that is associated with online businesses that are not exactly of good reputation or are not exactly legitimate. A close examination of these free domain names will reveal that they are simply subdomains (yourfreedomain.theirdomain.com) or folders residing under their domain (theirdomain.com/yourso-calledfreedomain). It won’t help with your page rank nor would it contribute to name recall…but yes, it is free. Oh, it might add to their credibility since you are essentially giving them free content.

Do not avail of “free domain registrations”. You might think that registration is normally a good thing, and it usually is, except on the occasion that a web hosting service will supposedly offer to do the registration for you, and then you discover later that your website is actually registered in their name. What you now have is that you are irrevocably locked into service with the web hosting service that registered your domain.

“Free images” are not really “free”. Not everyone is gifted with artistic talent, or the patience to finish a design that looks good enough to attract customers to your website, so free templates seem like the way to go, right? Wrong. A lot of the images, web forms, and web page designs are actually copyrighted to the web hosting service that offered them. You can use them for as long as you are with them, but in the eventuality that you decide to switch web hosts, you cannot bring these images, web forms, and web page designs with you, forcing to start from scratch again.

That was a look at a few instances where a web hosts’ free offers is not always a good thing.  Here are a few instances wherein scams in credit card processing can happen right under your nose with you not even noticing it, just like some of the scams web hosts disguise as a “free” service.

Late night orders can be just as dark. Records from authorities have shown that a huge number of fraudulent credit card payment attempts have been done at night. While this is not exactly an example of a brilliant criminal mind at work, considering the different time zones between the frauds and credit card processors, it is an established fact that more frauds are likely to try a credit card transaction at night.

Repeated attempts to buy products using the same credit card. This is a common indicator that the scammer is trying to use a credit card number that has been tagged by some Internet payment gateways as fraud. A lot of scammers have taken to using a credit card number generating software to try to pass off a fake number as legit and actually make a transaction, but the repeated use of numbers has raised a red flag in the newer systems used by more secure credit card processors today.

Scammers often order in bulk. It only follows criminal reason that since you have no intention of paying what you ordered for, you might as well order a lot of it. Scammers will definitely not mind the cost of what they ordered for, since they have no intention of paying for it, so suspiciously big orders should raise some flags whenever you come across it.

The sheer number of credit card scams has prompted credit card processing gateways to be more vigilant about their security measures. Scammers aren’t about to allow that to spoil their game, they’re also finding newer, sneakier ways to cheat merchants. Working with a credit card processor that offers more-than-the-average SSL encryption is just the beginning. Find out if they offer modern fraud scrubbing with AVS and BIN number country match, among other things.

Two definite ways to make money via the Internet –first, a product that would catch the attention of your audience or is of significance to your targeted market. If it’s a niche product for a particular usage it would be better if you and a couple of more vendors specialize in. Concentrating on general adult entertainment can be too time-consuming and exhausting. Shifting to a more particular turf such as adult toys or live webcam feeds entail fewer competitions and a higher share in the market.

Second, and more important of the two, get a merchant account service provider that would enable you to accept payments online. Unless you’re running an adult entertainment business purely as a hobby, you would want to collect money off your patrons. All your hard work would be a great waste if your website is not equipped as an e-commerce site. Being able to accept major credit cards whether for recurring subscriptions or one-time purchases is the key to running a successful online adult business.

For the first problem, there’s an easy solution. After all you wouldn’t be in this business if you didn’t already have materials in the first place, right? So you can either ride on your creativity (for blogs, stories and photography), buy available content online (videos and photos), hire talents (live webcam feeds) or have good sourcing (for toys and other adult paraphernalia). That shouldn’t be a big problem then.

The second one, as previously mentioned, is more important, and even more difficult to acquire. Any financial institution, whether banks or other alternative channels, will go through its clients with utmost care and consideration. Lending money or processing it for other people is a big responsibility, as such you might have to go through the strictest standards to get a merchant account.

Adult related businesses fall under the category of high-risk business, you have to take into account several implications – as compared to general or regular internet merchants, acquiring banks are much stringent in dealing with adult merchants. This includes more documents that you have to present, longer period for approval, higher fees or sometimes overt application rejection. If you bear this in mind when selecting your adult merchant account, it should make the process of your application more trouble-free.

Now off to the more important questions. As you go thorough your list of possible merchant account service providers, you should also begin to prepare a second list. This one should detail what each payment processor asks from you. If you find that some of the requirements are common across all payment processing service providers, then by all mean, jot them down. Then, proactively prepare a package with all the things they require. This would lessen your work of compiling each and every document every time you send out an application form. Here are samples of the kind of information that you should anticipate the merchant account provider would ask for:

1. Pertinent details about the company (ie, name of corporation, full address of where you conduct business, contact details of the company representative and much more)

2. Website information (including URL, years online, current traffic, etc.)

3. A general description of the types of products and services sold on your website

4. Information about your existing payment processor (name of the current merchant account provider, how long you were with them, the kind of relationship you had, the service they were able to provide, etc.)

5. Sales volume

6. Average number of sale transactions (per month)

7. Chargeback volume ratio

8. Refund ratio by volume

In terms of paperwork, different merchant account providers require different things. In any case, you should be prepared to provide:

1. Completed application form (issued by the merchant account provider)

2. Statements from your current processor (if you have one)

3. Articles of Incorporation (or Certificate of Incorporation)

4. Annual / Quarterly financial report from the company’s public accountant

5. Letters of reference (in most cases, from other financial institutions)

6. Information about the corporation’s board of directors

7. Proper identification for members of the board

8. PCI (AIS/SDP) compliance certification

To protect its assets, the merchant account provider may also ask you questions about the company’s practices. This may include questions about your customer support ability, shipping fees and estimated delivery time, return policy, cancellation policy, existing fraud scrubbing methods and other such matters.

Familiarizing with these aspects of merchant application does not assure approval. Bank acquirers have different requirement for each business. The information provided can prepare you through the challenges you might face in getting an adult merchant account.

posted at eMerchantPay.com

At any rate, selecting a gambling merchant account for your online business is relatively the same as selecting something for yourself - either things you want or those you need. This particular merchant account does not differ from other merchant accounts. Choosing a payment provider for your online business involves a great deal of assessment – you should be concerned whether it will best suit both the needs of your business and your clients. As such, the guarantee of safety and security for fund transfer is one of utmost concerns.

Certain forms of businesses have been classified as “high risk”, primarily because of some aspect of the business. Businesses categorized as high-risk are those that have high chargeback ratios such as the adult industry, travel-related services, gambling or casino, pharmaceuticals and magazine subscriptions

Here are some pointers to consider when looking for a viable gambling merchant account provider:

1. Make sure to do a market research. Talk to someone who has spent years in the business, you can learn a lot of important things from them.

2. Be sure to check the big numbers, cancellation fees, and most importantly, the hidden fees up front. A merchant account provider who really wants to do business with you will at least try to work with you to adapt to your capabilities.

3. Be sure to compare the different discount rates offered by the various payment processors. There will always be a merchant account provider offering good services online with a much better rate than others.

4. Be careful about advertisements that can be misleading or appear suspicious. If they lie on their ads then most likely they will do the same to you.

5. Verify the integrity of the company. Do a background check and see if the company is known for good business practices and if they have transacted with companies like yours.

6. Do not make a habit of signing a contract too hastily. Read the application carefully because some contracts carry a non-cancellation clause or penalty. If a company will not leave an application with you overnight, they are probably trying to use “high pressure” tactics so that you don’t have time to really know what you are signing.

7. Find out what people are saying about the merchant account provider and see which provider has the best reputation. Oftentimes the best form of marketing is by word of mouth, as these connote first hand experience and not just hearsay.

8. In choosing a credit card payment processor, check out the fees and services. Compare which one will work best for your business.

9. Check out how and when will you get the payment. Some merchant account providers have a minimum amount before they send you the payment. Others may charge you with wire transfer fees.

10. Stay away from providers with high monthly transaction fees. Most, if not all, of these providers usually charge their clients with such high fess in order to compensate for the expenses incurred from their marketing and sales efforts. These types of providers would definitely pump out money coming in.

Earning online is easy. Some will try to dissuade you. Others will tell you that it’s not really very reliable. And others still are just plain negative about the whole deal.

This blog aims to show you the truth. Yes, you may encounter difficulties as an online start up biz. If you stay your ground and keep working on it, you’ll see why it’s all worth it in the end. The first thing you’ll have to learn are the basics of high risk businesses. We will dissect what falls into this category and what problems need to be hurdled.

Keep checking back for more meaty articles I’ve published in different sites to get a good grasp of what the high risk industries are all about.